


Like Wheat Arising Green

by toffeecape



Series: Bird Rock Lambchop (Bird Bigger Bird) [2]
Category: Yu-Gi-Oh!
Genre: Anal Fingering, Bathing/Washing, Boys in Skirts, Comfort Food, Cultural Differences, Death from Old Age, Docking, Domestic Fluff, Family Feels, Fix-It, Frottage, Id Fic, Identity Porn, Light Dom/sub, M/M, Makeup, Mild Kink, Mutual Masturbation, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Not Canon Compliant, Nudity, Oral Sex, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Porn with Feelings, Religion, Rimming, Service Top, Shower Sex, Subspace, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-11
Updated: 2018-05-11
Packaged: 2019-05-05 06:24:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 10,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14611506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toffeecape/pseuds/toffeecape
Summary: Atem asks for something for himself, and gets it.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Update: I have now watched enough of the show that when I’m deviating from canon, I probably know and I definitely DGAF. Canon doesn’t deserve these boys; they’re my sons now. 
> 
> Draw up some insulin, people. Atem wanted to say a few words.

Atem gives no indication of his plan. He has no guarantee that it will work. He will not torture his friends - torture _Yugi_ \- with hope. If he fails, let them believe he is completely at peace. He crosses the threshold and does not look back.

And, oh! There are his friends of old and his family, waiting before him, and there is a moment when he considers doing as destiny bids, going into their arms and staying there. But he is not ready for that, not yet. Not without trying to achieve his heart’s desire.

He stops short, and turns his left foot to the undersun. He draws a deep breath, and gathers up every strand of power and authority he has ever wielded.

“Osiris!” he roars, “Lord of the Duat! Hear my petition, ere the closing of the Door of Wdjat!”

“Who would speak with the Lord of Silence?” The god’s voice is soft, and yet all noise around Him ceases so that He may be heard with perfect clarity. The wind has ceased to blow, and the door has ceased to close - time has stopped. His shadow stretches to the horizon, and Atem must look long up the gauze-wrapped body to fix his gaze on the vivid green face, turned down to regard him with a deceptively placid expression.

“It is I, Pharaoh Atem! Hear my words, O Judge in the West, and know them to be true:

In the first days of my reign, I gave my _ka_ to seal away Zorc Necrophades. My _khat_ and _jb_ also were utterly consumed, leaving not even ash. No one opened my mouth. No one opened my eyes. My very _ren_ was erased, that none might discover how the working was done and reverse it. My _bâ_ and _sheut_ were entombed in a cursed puzzle to wander forever. All this I sacrificed willingly, for the preservation of Ma’at.”

“You sacrificed much.” The god’s black eyes are fathomless. Distantly, Atem can hear someone weeping - probably Mana.

“And still the working was not complete. Zorc was not killed, only confined, and after five thousand years he sought escape once more.

My _bâ_ was loosed in a foreign land. I faced many trials and strange journeys to see Zorc destroyed for all time, with the aid of my brave and righteous friends.”

“A tale that contains many tales, not least how you come into My land as no pitiful lost _bâ,_ but a most potent _akh.”_ The god’s voice remains mild, but Atem thinks he detects a note of curiosity.

“Indeed. King of the Blessed Dead, one friend I had above all others, a youth whose generosity surpasses measurement. He gave shelter to my _bâ_ within his own _khat _.__ From his own mouth, he gave me food and drink, and rekindled my _ka._ With his own hands, he gave me comfort and pleasure, strengthening my will to prevail. By his gentle example I increased in wisdom and compassion.

In my darkest hour, he fought valiantly against Zorc and restored to me my _ren,_ allowing me to act as the herald of Horakhty, who vanquished Zorc at long last. Before the Door of Wdjat, my friend faced me in combat, defeating the very god-monsters themselves with his great cleverness, that the door might be opened and I might be delivered unto the Duat.”

“Truly, the service of this youth is exceptional.” Now there is no mistaking the approval in Osiris’s voice, and Atem knows He has been reminded of His own murder, and how His wife Isis labored to achieve His resurrection.

Atem fights to keep his voice ringing clear. This is it. “Lord of Love, this is my request: restore me to life, that I might return the love and devotion of my champion throughout his life, and guide him through the Duat after his death.”

“After your long service to Ma’at, you would return to the land of the living, instead of passing on to eternal rest in Aaru?”

“Great in splendor is Aaru, yet I will find no rest there without my beloved, nor in the knowledge that the paths of the dead are long-forgotten in his time.”

“A Pharaoh’s duty is to all his people, not just to one.” That’s not a no.

“If it be the price that I relinquish my office a third and final time, I pay it gladly. Praise be to my cousin Seth, a worthy Pharaoh in life and death.”

“Very well. Humble yourself, son of Aknamkanon.”

With all seemly haste, Atem removes his sandals and drops his cloak upon the sand. Collar and cuffs, earrings and headdress, all fall away, until he feels strangely light without the many pounds of gold. In only his tunic, and the cartouche bearing his name, he kneels at the feet of Osiris.

“Go to your champion, and love him in fullness, as reward for your many deeds. When death comes for you both, may you guide him safely through the Duat and pass into Aaru as princes of the royal family, and tell Us all the tales of your journeys.”

“Great is Your might and beneficence,” Atem says fervently, not looking up. The huge blue-and-yellow shepherd’s crook descends, its hook encircles him, and then he knows nothing but a blast of light.

When he comes to his senses once more, he is kneeling on the other side of the now-closed door. The stone is cold and gritty under his bare knees. The hands upon his knees are his own brown hands. There are shouts of surprise behind him.

He stands and turns toward his friends, but his eyes seek only one face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Very loosely and in brief:  
> Duat - underworld  
>  _ka_ \- life force  
>  _khat_ \- body  
>  _jb_ \- heart  
>  _ren_ \- name/memory/identity  
>  _bâ_ \- personality  
>  _sheut_ \- shadow  
>  Ma’at - order/truth/harmony  
>  _akh_ \- “effective one”, a unified spirit of _ka_ and _bâ_  
>  Aaru - paradise


	2. Chapter 2

The morning after his first round of vaccinations is the first day Atem doesn’t wake up with the sun. Instead it pries its hot fingers under his gluey eyelids, and stabs cruel needles into his swollen brain.

“Ra have mercy,” he groans, and tries to reach for a blanket or pillow to pull over his face, but both his arms are too sore to lift, and both his hips are too sore to turn over, so he settles for feebly smushing his face into Yugi’s side.

“How’re you feeling, other me?”

“One time Mana and I drank some spiked sacramental beer by mistake. This is almost as bad.”

“...what was it spiked with?”

“We didn’t know, and we didn’t want to know. The secret is best lost to the sands,” Atem says darkly.

Yugi feels his forehead. His hand is cool, and Atem nuzzles into it.

“Yep, you definitely have a fever. Hang on, I’ll go get you something.” Yugi peels himself away from Atem and gets out of the bed. Atem tries to wiggle onto a cooler section of the mattress without moving his arms or legs.

Yugi returns with a big glass of water and two small white pills. He helps Atem sit up - with much groaning - and take them. They’re very bitter, but the cold water tastes wonderful. He slumps forward and rests his head on Yugi’s belly.

“Remind me again why I’m doing this?”

“So you don’t _die_ of _plague_.” Yugi’s voice is sharp, but his hands are gentle as he pets Atem’s hair. “You’re also protecting, like, babies and old people and cancer patients. And making Mom happy.” The discovery that Atem was totally unvaccinated had caused Ms. Mutou’s suspicion of her son’s boyfriend (with his admittedly sketchy backstory of ‘he got out of a weird situation that he’d rather not talk about’) to flip over into a fierce protectiveness.

Atem butts Yugi’s hands to make him continue petting. “She must be home by now. Did she go to bed yet?”

“Yeah, but she has the weekend off for once, so she’ll be around this evening. We’ll make something special for dinner. Any requests?”

“Falafel?” Atem asks hopefully.

Yugi chuckles. “If you weren’t too put off by the last time we tried, sure, we can do that.”

Atem leans in harder to Yugi, starting to shiver as the fever shifts to a chill.

“You need to cover up. Robe, or back in bed?”

Atem’s teeth are chattering. “Will you g-get back in bed with me?”

“Sure. Lemme just set up a few things.”

Which is how they spend the morning with Atem’s head in Yugi’s lap while Yugi sits on the bed playing video games, and the afternoon with Atem wrapped in a blanket burrito, propped up against Yugi on the living room couch while he reads. By evening he feels well enough to put on a robe and shuffle around in the kitchen trying to help with falafel, until they park him at the table with a mug of chicken broth.

“How come I get broth and Grandpa gets beer?” he grouses.

Grandpa tips his bottle in a smug salute. “Because I already got over _my_ flu shot.”

Ms. Mutou raises an eyebrow. “You’re also not 20 yet, Atem.”

Grandpa chortles, “I seem to recall a certain high school girl calling me to pick her up from more than one party, crying all the way home about how much she loved cats.”  

“Dad!”

The falafel is still only vaguely recognizable as such, and Atem still feels like a wrung-out dishrag. Even so, having dinner in the Mutou kitchen, Yugi’s fingers occasionally brushing and tangling with his under the table, he feels a warm glow in his chest.

Being up for the evening wipes him out, though; he has to sit on the toilet seat to brush his teeth. He plucks at his sweaty t-shirt with a grimace. “I feel unclean, but I’m too tired to shower,” he complains.

Yugi opens his mouth, closes it, then finally says, “I could help you bathe, if you wanted.” Atem nods his assent.

He’s nearly fallen asleep by the time Yugi turns off the tap. “Okay, other me,” he says, “let’s get you in there.” Atem is able to remove his sleep clothes without much assistance, but he wobbles stepping into the tub and puts a hand on Yugi’s arm.

He moans aloud when he sinks down into the water. It’s perfectly warm, instantly soothing the crawling feeling of tacky sweat from his skin. “This was a really good idea,” he says.

The washcloth Yugi sweeps over him in broad, firm strokes feels even better. Atem hums his appreciation and relaxes further into the bath, then looks up at Yugi.

“Oh,” he chuckles, “is this doing something for you, partner?” Yugi’s cheeks are bright red and there is a visible tent in his slacks.

“You could say that,” Yugi manages.

Atem smiles lazily. “Well,” he murmurs, “there’s more where that came from.” Indeed, while he has very little to offer tonight, lying around like a lump to be handled he has in abundant supply. And handle him Yugi does, washing him rather more thoroughly than is strictly necessary, down to his fingertips and toes. All Atem has to do is remain pliant and soak it up, eyes drifting shut again.

Finally Yugi says, “All that’s left is your hair.”

Atem slides down into the water until he can feel his hair drifting free, then comes back up and lets Yugi lather it with shampoo. The feel of Yugi’s fingers massaging his scalp provokes another groan of pleasure.

The sound Yugi makes isn’t quite a whimper, but it’s close. Still, his hands are steady as he guides Atem down to rinse out the shampoo, then back up to do it all again with conditioner.

“Is it weird that this is as hot to me as sex?” Yugi asks quietly.

Atem opens his eyes to look at Yugi. “Not to someone who knows you,” he replies.

“I mean, even the fact that you’re _not_ turned on is somehow perfect right now,” Yugi says with a puzzled frown.

Atem thinks while Yugi rinses his hair a final time, lets the water out, and helps him to stand. As Yugi is towelling him off, Atem says, “I think it’s fine to be weird. If you’re weird, then I love weird.”

He’s fading fast, registering things in flickers of sensation. Clean, dry sleep clothes. Soft bed. Warm, wonderful Yugi. The last thing he knows is Yugi kissing his forehead and whispering, “Love you too, weirdo.”


	3. Chapter 3

One lazy afternoon, Atem is learning about the pastime of ‘channel surfing’, and happens across a preview for a cooking show that is about to start.

“Ooh, she’s going to make bread!”

Yugi looks up from his Game Boy to smile at him. “That’s what gets your attention? Bread?”

“You would not _believe_ how much of my job was supposed to revolve around bread.”

“Really? Not titanic shadow monsters?”

“Nope. Bread.”

The show gets underway, the host pre-measuring her ingredients. “Look at that flour,” Atem comments, “the palace chefs would have wept to touch something so fine. And I bet there’s no sand in it at all.”

_“Sand?”_

“It helped with grinding the wheat. The poorest flour had the most, but even I have sand damage to my teeth.”

“We should probably get you to a dentist at some point,” Yugi realizes. Atem is already absorbed back into the show.

“Salt, oil, water, yes. Pretty soon she’ll bring out the starter and skip ahead a day, I guess.” Instead the host stirs sugar into the water and adds some brown granules. “What’s that?”

“What’s what?”

“She called it ‘yeast’.”

“Oh, it makes the bread rise, I think.”

 _“What?”_ But Yugi’s right; with no other ingredients at all, the bowl of sweetened water and yeast is shortly a bowl of vigorously-bubbling foam, which is then incorporated into the dough. No starter is brought forth. The kneaded dough rises in a time-skipped two hours. _Two hours._

Atem grabs Yugi’s hand. “We need to go shopping _right now.”_

One grocery run later, a bemused Yugi helps an excited Atem unpack their spoils. “I guess this is something I take for granted,” Yugi comments.

Atem shakes the little jar of dry yeast. “This is the favor of the gods, Yugi! There was an entire genre of prayers dedicated just to keeping one’s starter vigorous.”

“I’m warning you, I’ve never actually made bread. Have you?”

“I helped sometimes, when I wanted to snatch bits from the kitchen. It was a different undertaking, then.” Atem examines the recipe on the bag of flour and starts lining up ingredients and utensils.

“Different how?”

“Well, there was the part where it took all day. And the chefs made hundreds of loaves in a day, in flame ovens.” Atem mixes sugar into the warm water, then with great reverence sprinkles in the yeast.

“I saw the palace in your memories. It was big, but not that big.”

“It wasn’t all for the residents and staff, although we ate a _lot -_ bread then was like rice here. Some dough came from the townspeople outside the palace, to share the oven space. And some of the bread was ‘for the gods’, to be offered up and then eaten by the priests or handed out to the poor.” Atem crouches down to watch the yeast in the glass bowl. Just like on the cooking show, it bubbles up incredibly fast. “Miraculous!”

“Miraculous science,” says Yugi, grinning at his enthusiasm.

“Yes!”

They while away the afternoon muddling through the rest of the recipe, ending up with two loaves of golden, crusty bread.

“That’s a lot of work for two loaves,” Yugi comments.

“Bite your tongue!” says Atem. “That was so easy it feels like a joke. And here,” he cuts two thick, steaming slices, spreads them with butter and honey, and hands one to Yugi. “You can’t buy this part. Only bakers get to taste bread this way, fresh from the oven. It’s a different food once it cools.”  

He eats his own slice with eyes closed. The delicate crust and silky crumb don’t much resemble the heavy, gritty loaves he remembers, but the hot, yeasty fragrance is the same, and the mingled, melted spreads. He tasted these same flavors standing barefoot on limestone, as a stark naked five-year-old (and a truant ten- and fifteen-year-old) under the indulgent eyes of the chefs, five thousand years ago.

When he opens his eyes again they’re a tiny bit misty. Yugi is watching him with unguarded affection. “You’re right,” he says softly, “you can’t buy that.” He kisses Atem, and his lips are hot from the bread and taste of honey. “I’ll bake bread with you anytime you want.”

Well, Atem can’t not hoist him onto the table and make out with him after that. Flour gets everywhere, and they are hard-pressed to clean it all up before Ms. Mutou and Grandpa return.


	4. Chapter 4

Atem doesn’t actually _try_ to wake up every day at dawn; it just happens. And he doesn’t mind that it happens, generally. He likes the early morning hush, the chance to apply his eyeliner with total concentration, to (very quietly) sing the sunrise hymn and hear in the back of his mind most of a city doing the same. He takes to making breakfast for everyone, leaving half of it under foil in the warm oven, but having his own with Ms. Mutou when she gets home from work.

One morning she watches with concern as Atem stifles multiple yawns.“You’re looking a little drawn lately, and worse in the afternoons. You know I don’t expect you to get up to meet me, right?”

Atem shrugs. “Force of habit - I’m used to waking up with the sun.” It’s been five thousand years for his consciousness, but his body seems to have picked up where it left off. “It wouldn’t even be a problem if I could just get to sleep early enough.”

“In my son’s room? With a TV, a laptop, a dozen LEDs of things plugged in, and an uncovered skylight?”

“Well, yes, but what does that have to do with it?”

“Take it from a nurse on permanent nights: everything. It’s the light from the sun that’s waking you up in the morning, and it’s the light from the electronics that’s stopping you from falling asleep at night.” She rubs her hands together briskly. “You could be the reason I finally get that boy to implement some sleep hygiene.”

“Oh, that’s really not-”

“It’ll be good for his health too.”

“-okay.” She smirks at him; she has Atem all figured out.

She uses the same strategy on Yugi when he balks at modifying his gaming habits: “You want Atem to be healthy, don’t you?” Before long everything with a lit LED at rest is behind a door or in a drawer, all the screens in the room have filters to turn them dim and red at night, and there are blinds attached to the skylight. Atem is grateful he accepted her help when summer begins in earnest; he hadn’t quite understood just how short the nights were going to get.

Yugi looks at him oddly when Atem tells him this. “But you’ve lived in Japan for two years already.”

“I was _dead_ in Japan for two years,” Atem corrects him, “and we spent most of that time running from one crisis to another all over the world. I really wasn’t paying attention to the finer points of living in a body.” He slides a hand around Yugi’s waist and pulls him close. “Just the highlights, thanks to you,” he says with a wink.

Yugi rolls his eyes and shoves him onto the bed. “I’ll show _you_ highlights,” he purrs into Atem’s ear, already tightening his grip on Atem’s collar and reaching into Atem’s pants. Atem arches up into his hands eagerly.

They’re so hungry for each other’s bodies - and Yugi usually leaves Atem’s mind so blissfully whited-out - that it takes a while for Atem to realize Yugi is following him into bed even when they _don’t_ have sex. He sits up and looks at Yugi, who looks back at him innocently, covers pulled up to his chin.

“Are you - switching to my sleep schedule?”

Yugi shrugs. “Yeah. Is that a problem?”

“Making it easier to share a room is one thing, but you shouldn’t have to change yourself to fit my antiquated habits.”

“Well, I want as much time with you as I can get, especially since you decided to skip school and go for the Daiken.”

“We agreed it would attract too much scrutiny.” The Ishtar family bought him a secure status as a person in massive, faceless government databases, but fake school transcripts would always have led back to a glaring lack of anyone with any memory of him at their school.

“And I still agree - but I also still miss you when I’m there.” Yugi rubs Atem’s thigh. “Plus… you’ve had to give up pretty much everything about your old life. This is something from your past you can keep doing, and I want to help you have that.” Yugi has to stop then, because Atem can’t not kiss him, heart fit to burst with love. When he comes up for air, Yugi blinks dazedly for a moment, then continues, “Besides, I think you antiquity types were onto something. I feel great, and my grades are going up. I think July finals are going to go really well.”

Several days into this, Yugi wakes up in the middle of the night. “This is so unfair,” he grumbles, punching his pillow, “what’s the point of going to bed so early if my body’s just going to wake up _now?”_

Atem puts his Daiken English study guide back down on the desk and turns off the dim red lamp he was using to read it. The room goes all but black, lit only by traces from the covered skylight. “This is a good thing,” he says, slipping back into bed, “you’re getting first and second sleep back.”

“What are you talking about?”

Atem explains, “Most properly-rested people sleep, wake for one to three hours, and then sleep again. This used to be common knowledge.”

Yugi flops onto his back and stares at the ceiling a moment, then nods to himself, absorbing this new wrinkle with the same grace he brings to everything. He’s so amazing; Atem is so lucky.

Yugi interrupts Atem’s swoon by saying, “So. A couple of free hours every night. What did you used to do? Somehow I doubt you studied to skip the dregs of ancient Egyptian high school.”

“Whatever I wanted. Raid the palace kitchen, sometimes. If any of my friends were awake, I would pester them into playing games with me.”

Yugi smiles fondly at him. “Of course you did.”

Atem lifts himself onto his hands and knees and climbs on top of Yugi. “You know what my people called this time? The Fertile Hours. The best time for composing, designing, planning - any act of creation.” He sits down on Yugi’s hips. “It was especially recommended for making babies.”

Yugi’s laugh shakes them both. “Small chance of that happening here, other me.”

“But it’s still an act of creation,” Atem argues as he bends down to kiss Yugi’s goofy smile. “We create joy, and strength in our bond. Sometimes we create a mess.”

“ _Usually_ we create a mess.”

“Create a mess with me, partner?” Atem punctuates this with a sinuous roll of his hips. Yugi, hard since Atem sat down on him, catches his breath and lifts his hips in kind. Atem sighs into his mouth and kisses him again. Slow and sensuous, tongues twining and brushing in Atem’s mouth and then in Yugi’s, rocking their bodies together. Atem feels like he’s drinking deep and pouring himself out at the same time.

As unhurried as their pace is, Atem’s need still sharpens eventually, so he shifts his weight onto one arm and reaches down between them with the other. Yugi’s cock always gets so slippery - Atem didn’t realize it until he got his own body back, complete with circumcision. It’s a boon, though, providing enough wetness for them to rub together comfortably. He holds Yugi’s shaft in place and thrusts against it, stroking from root to tip, keeping up a slow, smooth rhythm.

“Ohh, that’s so good, other me.” Yugi reaches up and strokes Atem’s lips. “Here, open up. Get them wet.” Atem takes two of Yugi’s fingers into his mouth and sucks them lavishly, letting himself drool a little. “Yeah, that’s it. That’s really good.” Atem’s cheeks heat at the praise.

Yugi withdraws his fingers - Atem chases them with a tiny nip then lets them go. He reaches down, behind Atem, between his cheeks. “Yeah?”

“Please, yes,” Atem murmurs, then gasps when Yugi gently breaches his entrance, first with one finger, then with two.

“You open up so fast,” Yugi says, his voice low and hot, “like you can’t wait to get me inside you, any way you can.” With his other hand, he thumbs and then rolls Atem’s nipple.

“Always, Yugi,” Atem blurts out, swaying forward to feel Yugi’s cock, and then back onto Yugi’s fingers. “I can’t tell you what it does to me, to have lived inside you, and now to feel part of you inside me.”

“I loved keeping you safe like that, taking care of you. I still love it.” His fingers burrow deep, shift and separate gently, pulling Atem apart like cotton candy. “You’re mine, Atem.”

“Yes,” Atem moans, starting to come, _“yes,_ yours, yes.” He shakes apart around Yugi’s touch, stuttering thrusts against Yugi’s cock, until his arm gives out and he has to fall down onto both elbows.

Yugi is nearly there himself, grinding up against Atem almost too hard, fingers slipping out of his ass to take a firm grip on his buttock instead, pinching his own nipple now instead of Atem’s. “That was amazing, you’re - ah, Atem!” Atem kisses him with tingling lips and eats up Yugi’s loud sigh when he comes.

They lie together in a humid tangle, breath slowing gradually, Yugi stroking the back of Atem’s neck, and Atem aimlessly thumbing Yugi’s collarbone.

Eventually Atem says, “The other popular activity during the Fertile Hours was petty crime. Now I know that’s because most people with partners were too distracted to notice.” Yugi laughs.

“Baby-making and burglary. I’ve never heard of that making it onto any tomb paintings.”

“Fun burials were for people who couldn’t afford sealed tombs.”

“Nah, I bet there’s a few dirty jokes in there. They probably just get lost in translation.”

Atem hesitates, then asks shyly, “What was mine like? It was very preliminary when I was alive; it had to have been modified to hide the Millennium Puzzle and the last inscription of my name.”

Yugi thinks for a minute, then says, “It was very… King of Games. Tons of booby traps and puzzles, an all-in riddle at the end, and then the prize: your name in a golden treasure room. Whoever set it up knew you really well.”

“And you won through to the end without even being able to read the instructions,” Atem says, smiling besottedly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> According to my research, the Daiken was the Japanese equivalent of a GED in 1998.


	5. Chapter 5

“Hey, Atem?”

“Mmm?” Atem doesn’t look away from the mirror in Yugi’s room; without his full attention, he won’t get the trails past the margins of his eyelids to be the same length on both sides. 

“Would you rather go naked, or without eyeliner?” 

He scoffs, “That’s not even a question. Naked.” 

“Really? Even if it was cold?” 

“If it was a safety issue and I had to, I suppose I would choose to go without eyeliner instead. But I would be more  _ comfortable  _ naked.” He’s naked right now, letting the last moisture from his shower air-dry while he puts his face on. Perfect kohl; he congratulates himself, and turns to the question of lipstick. “I  _ did  _ go naked for the first six years of my life.”

“Really?”

“Mm-hmm. All children did. I was  _ not  _ best pleased to be forced into a skirt at last, even if it did mean I got to go to school with Mahaad.” Just a neutral gloss, he decides, something that stands up to his earrings without clashing with them, because today he feels like  _ big  _ earrings. Hoops with ankh charms suspended from them, that swing and jingle softly when he turns his head.

Yugi says, “You know, come to think of it, I didn’t see a single person wearing pants in your memories. It was all skirts and robes all the time.”

“That’s right. Pants are a new invention.” 

“They’re everywhere now, though. Do they look weird to you?” 

Atem looks at Yugi. “Imagine if everyone was walking around wearing those leg-protectors from that cowboy movie and nothing else.”

“Assless chaps?” Yugi exclaims. “You feel like everyone is walking around wearing assless chaps?” 

Atem nods and adds some silver bangles to his wrists. He loves silver; it’s so much more exotic to him than gold, and doesn’t have any uncomfortable associations with the kingship he renounced. It also coordinates well with Yugi’s collar and Téa’s cartouche, both of which he intends to die in. “Pretty much. Pants are  _ so  _ immodest; they show the whole thighs, all the way up, and then cling outrageously to the buttocks and genitals. A naked body is less remarkable than one so coyly fitted. It’s a good thing I had some practice with you, ignoring pants without knowing why they looked so strange, before I got my memories back, or I would scarcely be able to function.” 

“So,” Yugi says in a tone of dawning realization, “you don’t  _ just  _ look right at everyone’s faces because you’re confident and courteous. You’re also trying to ignore their ridiculous lower-body clothing situation.” 

Atem shrugs. “And my own, since I often wear pants to fit in. I can ignore it or be eternally hysterical about it.” He looks over at Yugi, who is himself wearing pants at this very moment. “Or eternally tormented by desire.” 

Yugi’s eyebrows shoot up. “Oh? You feel like I’m teasing you?” 

“I know, up here,” Atem taps his head, “that you’re not doing it on purpose, but down here,” he taps his lower abdomen, “doesn’t always listen.” 

Yugi saunters closer, a mischievous light in his eyes that always bodes well for Atem. “And what does your downstairs brain think you should do?” 

“Unwrap you,” Atem breathes, “since you’re so blatantly on display. Take your cock in my mouth, your ass in my hands, like proffered gifts accepted.” 

Yugi puts his hand on the back of Atem’s neck and kisses him, lewdly sliding his tongue into Atem’s mouth. Atem’s hands go around Yugi’s waist, bangles clinking as he clutches at the warm skin and firm muscle beneath. 

Yugi pulls away from his mouth and says, “How about you do that now?” in  _ that _ voice, the low, eager tone that makes Atem weak at the knees. He puts the gentlest downward pressure on the back of Atem’s neck, and he folds. But when he goes to unfasten the pants that have so vexed him, Yugi stops him.

“Do you think you could do it with your mouth?” His pupils are huge as he looks down at Atem, mining deeply into that vein of playful creativity that has produced so many brilliant results for them both. As soon as he makes the suggestion, Atem wants it too. 

The button is tricky enough that it would be embarrassing, except that Yugi keeps his hands in Atem’s hair and praises him the entire time. “You’re doing so well, Atem. I can’t believe you’re doing this for me. You look so hot down there, keeping your hands off, being good, because I asked. God, I didn’t know I could get this hard.” It’s true; Yugi’s cock is straining the fabric so tightly it looks painful, wafting enticing smells to Atem while he puzzles out the button with his lips and tongue and teeth. 

At last he figures out the trick of it, pops the button free, and looks triumphantly up at Yugi as he seizes the zipper in his teeth and pulls it down. 

“Fuuuck, other me, that was awesome, you’re awesome. Okay, now touch me,  _ please  _ touch me,” Yugi babbles, and Atem wastes no time pulling Yugi’s underwear down, then grabbing Yugi’s ass and pulling him forward to drive his cock into Atem’s mouth. The heavy, salty flesh on his tongue makes him moan. 

“Uunh, Atem, I’m not gonna last,” Yugi warns, “quick, gimme a finger.” Atem slides a finger into his mouth beside Yugi’s cock and removes it with a pop, then reaches between Yugi’s asscheeks, giving his hole a reassuring, circling rub before breaching him carefully. The extra stimulation makes Yugi toss his head and snap his hips forward, emptying himself into Atem’s throat with a loud groan. Atem gentles him through it, mouth going soft as Yugi’s cock becomes oversensitive, before releasing him with a pang of regret. 

“Holy shit,” Yugi gasps, “that was incredible.” 

Atem smirks as best he can while being desperately hard himself. “Anyway, that’s what I think about doing every time I remember what you’re wearing,” he says, trying to keep his voice steady. 

Yugi mock-glares at him. “And now I’m going to think about it every time I see you looking at me. I see your game. Get on the bed, you.” 

Atem scrambles to his feet and onto the bed, and Yugi pushes him down onto his back and pulls the lube out of their nightstand. 

“Do you wanna know what torments  _ me  _ with desire, Atem?” he says conversationally, guiding Atem to bend his knees and part his thighs. He coats the fingers of one hand with lube.

Atem tries to think of a smart answer, but he’s already too deep beneath the waves, and manages only a shaky, “Yes.” 

“You.” Yugi takes Atem’s cock in his fist, and slides two fingers at once into his hole. Atem shudders, torn between lifting and lowering his hips. “Carrying on a conversation like you’re at - at  _ tea _ or something, naked as the day you were born with all your gorgeous skin just  _ out there _ .” He jerks Atem with a firm grip and finger-fucks him in tandem, just a little too slow to drive Atem to orgasm, but plenty hard enough to drive him out of his mind. 

“Except for your  _ makeup  _ and  _ jewelry _ , fuck, can’t forget those. You look like a treasure, like some kind of harem fantasy porn brought to life, hotter than the fucking sun. Except even better because you’re not putting it on for me, it’s just who you are, and you’re  _ you. _ And I love you.” 

“Yugi…” Atem is so open, splayed out like this, so  _ seen _ by Yugi. He does feel like a treasure, all of him beheld and valued. 

“And now I want to see you come.” Yugi gives him a third finger and speeds up his rhythm, internal and external still in time. “Come for me now, Atem.” 

The words are like a key, opening a door inside himself that flies open and floods everything with light. He empties himself into Yugi’s hands, trusting his partner to hold him steady while he spirals off into a quiet, wordless, thoughtless place. 

When he comes back to himself, he’s been cleaned up and tucked beneath the blankets, including a blanket made of naked Yugi.

“Welcome back,” Yugi says with a smile. 

“I had things I planned to do today,” Atem complains blearily. 

“Oh, me too. Although, I confess: this was one of them.” 

“You’re going to have to do everything else knowing I’m wearing my white pleated skirt.” 

Yugi twitches. “You just finished explaining to me how you find skirts way more modest than pants.”

“To me. I know what they look like to you. And, as you know, I won’t be wearing a stitch under it.” 

“You never do.” Yugi tries to sound blasé and fails. 

“No, because I refuse to have any part of those vile undergarments, doubly so on hot days like today. But  _ you  _ just finished explaining to me how much nakedness arouses you.” Atem rubs his cheek against Yugi’s and whispers in his ear, “If you think on that today, do you think you can fuck me again tonight?” 

“Oh,” Yugi says, high-pitched, “that won’t be a problem.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Atem’s skirt is white in honor of [this lovely fic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4120093), from which I got the idea.


	6. Chapter 6

As much as Atem appreciates Ms. Mutou’s help with his sleep routine, he’s glad when the days start to shorten again, and his waking realigns with true sunrise (if only briefly, before winter pushes it away in the other direction - what a strange existence he has come to live, here on the top of the world!). The first morning when he gets up and sees dawn just peeking over the horizon, he puts on his robe and slips outside to the tiny yard behind Kame Game, because he wants to greet it properly.

His song echoes off the several trees and down the street, but the street is deserted and while he has a good voice, he’s not worried about being heard by anyone indoors. He has no room for worry. He has become like a jar, filled up with nothing but the light of the sun and the melody of the hymn, until he can’t help but spill over.

So carried away is he by the music, by his memories of hundreds of voices singing it together, that it takes some time for him to realize one of the voices joining him is real. A fine tenor, harmonizing sweetly with his baritone.

 _Yugi._ Their eyes meet, briefly, and then Atem closes his and turns to face the sun again. Their song lifts into the morning sky like a winged, living thing.

The last notes die away, and Atem realizes they joined hands at some point. He squeezes Yugi’s, too overcome for the moment to look at him or even speak.

At last he rasps, “How-” he clears his throat and tries again, “how do you know that song?”

“I ran around in your memories for days, other me, including the mornings. It was hard to miss. Joey, Téa, and Tristan could probably make a decent showing of it too.”

“But you knew the harmonies.”

“Oh, I just made those up. It’s not hard to figure out a harmony when the melody is right there.” Atem has to pull Yugi into his arms and kiss him then, like he had to step outside and sing this morning.

“Do you know what it means?”

“I don’t know what the words mean, but it has to be a hymn to Ra, right? The sun god?”

Atem nods. “The provider of all life. There are many gods in my religion; it took a whole nation to worship them all. There is a specific deity for virtually every imaginable request. But Ra we don’t ask for anything. To Ra we just say thank you.” He rests his forehead against Yugi’s, falling into his wide, kind eyes. “A practice I feel moved to continue.”

Yugi returns his smile, then shivers. “Are we done saying thank you? My feet are freezing and I could use a shower.”

Atem agrees and goes back inside with Yugi, though he still feels unbalanced somehow; the central subject of his gratitude has inserted himself into this holy time, and the urge to worship has not left him. So he follows Yugi into the shower, and presses himself flush against Yugi so the hot water streams over them both, and confesses, “I find I’m not quite done praying yet.”

“Could’ve fooled me,” Yugi jokes, but he leans into Atem’s touch, and lets his head fall back as Atem rains kisses over his neck and collarbones. He’s almost painfully lovely, his small, lean body sharply defined, and then his dear soft face, with its black fans of lashes where his eyes have slipped shut. He’s so unspeakably precious to Atem. It occurs to him that maybe Osiris let him go because He knew Atem would have overturned the whole of the underworld to climb his way back to Yugi somehow.

“I want to try something,” he says between kisses, “let me know if you don’t like it.” He spins Yugi gently to face the wall of the shower, and begins to kiss the back of him instead: his neck, his shoulders, down the sweet valley between the muscles of his back. He sweeps his hands up and down Yugi’s back ahead of his mouth, gentling him, and then kneading his ass.

“Are you going where I think you’re - yep! You are! Hoo boy...” Yugi sounds keyed-up, but game, as Atem parts his buttocks and leans in to lick the cleft between them. His hole visibly clenches and relaxes with anticipation, and Atem licks it more specifically with the soft flat of his tongue, then kisses it. He readjusts his grip on Yugi’s buttocks, parting him wider, then rubbing his hole with his thumbs. He licks a few more times, then points his tongue and pushes in.

“Ahhhh!” Yugi slaps the wall of the shower, his legs starting to shake. They both spend so much time paying attention to Atem’s ass - which Atem loves, can’t get enough of - that sometimes Yugi’s gets short shrift. But it’s wonderfully sensitive, a part of his body that Yugi was playing with even before Atem came along. It’s as sweet and beautiful as every other part of Yugi, and he deserves to have it bring him good feelings. So Atem holds him open and drives his tongue in deep, over and over, now and again swirling around his opening or trying to curl the tip inside a different way. Yugi gasps and moans and struggles to hold himself upright but never tries to pull away from Atem’s touch, opening up like a flower. It puts Atem very much in mind of how he yields to Yugi normally, and he thrills to have found something that lets him give back the same experience of trust and abandon and innocent, unrestrained joy.

At length, Yugi’s moans become more desperate, building in pitch and sharpness, until he locks his knees and drops one hand to his erection, bracing his shoulder against the wall. A few uncoordinated jerks are all it takes before he comes, his yell echoing in the shower. Atem supports him as he folds bonelessly onto Atem’s lap.

“That’s some praying, other me,” Yugi pants. Atem is in a bad state himself, grinding futilely up against Yugi’s legs. At length Yugi recovers enough to twist and look at him, bright-eyed and pink-cheeked - not just like he’s well-fucked, but like he has an Idea. “There’s something I’ve been curious to try too, okay?”

“Anything, Yugi.”

“Same thing, just tell me if you don’t like it.” Yugi turns until he’s facing Atem and straddling his lap, and then, looking ridiculously shy for someone who just let Atem eat his ass for breakfast, he reaches down and takes Atem’s cock in hand.

“That’s nice, but what-” but Yugi’s not done. He brings his own soft cock forward to meet Atem’s hard one, and then _rolls his foreskin right over Atem’s cockhead._

 _“What_ the-”

“It had to be sometime when I’d come first, so you’d have more room,” Yugi says. “What do you think?”

“It doesn’t _hurt?”_

“Well, you’ll never get to pound away, but no, it just feels stretchy and full.” Yugi strokes his skin where it envelops Atem, slides it back and forth like Atem has seen him do on his own erection. The sensation is - nice, a little dampened compared to having his bare skin touched, and there’s a feeling of mild suction, and the tip of his glans rubbing against the tip of Yugi’s, far back inside. But the  _idea_ is so startling, Atem can barely comprehend it even as it's happening. 

“I have _never_ heard of this.”

“You wouldn’t have. Being cut was practical in the desert; I bet all the guys were.” Yugi keeps up his stroking, looking with pleased concentration at what he’s doing. “I like it, seeing you wearing my skin again. I’d be hard right now if you hadn’t just rimmed me into next week.”

“It’s… _very_ intimate.” As Atem recovers from his shock, he’s finding the sight interesting himself, and the concept even moreso. Yugi’s right; it does remind him of the time he spent wearing Yugi’s body, even copying its appearance to give his soul form again when he’d forgotten his own. “Heh. You’re still finding ways to make a home for me, partner.”

“Exactly. You came home to me, Atem, and I’ll keep you forever if you let me.”

 _“Let_ you,” Atem breathes, starting to lose track of the conversation. His arousal, banked first by concentration and then by surprise, is roaring in his blood now. Even the unfamiliar feeling of Yugi touching him in this unprecedented way is pushing him to the brink. “I want, I - oh, Yugi, I’m close!”

“Really? Wow, hang on.” Yugi frees Atem’s cock, shuffles back, and crouches down to suck him. The sudden increase in pressure and slickness does him in, and Atem arches up with a deep groan of release.

Yugi comes up licking his lips, looking extraordinarily pleased with himself, as he has every right to be. “You are a genius,” Atem tells him, “you never stop surprising me.”

“I might if you stick around long enough,” Yugi warns.

“Impossible. I will now prove it by staying forever.”

Yugi’s smile is blinding - until it changes all at once to horror when the hot water tank runs out and the shower turns icy. “Not in here, I hope!” he yelps, scrabbling for the taps.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OMG you guys look at this amazing [fanart](http://celepom.tumblr.com/post/175258673412/breaks-her-own-rule-about-not-postinglinking-to) by the wonderful Celepom! Look at their gorgeous tender faces! LOOK AT THEM! *weeps*


	7. Chapter 7

“Hi Mom! How was dragon boat training?”

“Typical for off-season: only about half the team made it. But those of us who stick it out over the winter get the key positions in spring.” Ms. Mutou hangs up her coat and comes into the kitchen. “What are you boys making that smells so good?”

“Buri daikon,” says Atem, anxiously poking the simmering yellowtail and daikon radish. “I hope it turns out.” It’s early in the season for both the main ingredients, but the sale was too good to pass up.

“I didn’t have to cook it, so I already love it,” Ms. Mutou says warmly, and gets down the bowls.

It does turn out. “A night off, _and_ my boys cooking great food for me? I’ll brag about this to my book club tonight.” Ms. Mutou finishes her beer, then says, “Before I head out to that, I’ve been meaning to visit the shrine. I’d like you all to come with me, especially Atem.” Atem shoots a mildly panicked glance at Yugi, who just gives him a puzzled shrug back.

As their bundled-up procession of four makes its way through town, Atem and Yugi drop behind Grandpa and Ms. Mutou. “Yugi, help! I have no idea what to do at a shrine,” Atem whispers.

“It’s not hard,” Yugi whispers back, “just follow my lead.”

“Why do you think she wanted me to come?”

“I have one idea, but I don’t want to jinx it. We’ll find out soon enough.”

Even so close to the food trucks and playing children in the main area of the park, there’s a hushed feeling around the shrine that Atem remembers from the temples of his youth - on ordinary days of course, not festival days - and he thinks he would know it for a holy place even if he somehow wandered here straight out of his past, before everything.

Yugi was right: the protocol of the visit isn’t hard. Bow at the gate, wash hands and mouth at the basin (Atem watches how Yugi does it and copies him carefully), offer a coin at the altar, ring the bell, bow twice, clap twice, then bow once. The pause before the final bow is clearly the moment to pray. Atem hopes it isn’t disrespectful to include Osiris in his prayer of thanks, in this place so far from anything his people imagined. Atem has gotten so much more than he asked for, and his gratitude is no less heartfelt for being silent.

After passing back through the gate, Ms. Mutou says, “Atem. A few days ago, I called the priest and had your name added to the shrine’s list of names.”

Atem stops dead in his tracks. “What?”

“It’s traditional, when a child is born, or someone moves to a new community. You’re _ujiko_ now, a family child.”

Atem swallows. “My name is written in there?” He points back toward the shrine.

Ms. Mutou nods. “I wanted to show you that I’m glad you’ve joined our family. Oof!” Atem’s hug surprises her, but she takes it in stride and pats Atem gingerly on the back.

“Yeah, Mom!” Yugi cheers.

“Thank you, Ms. Mutou,” Atem says, struggling to keep his voice level.

“For heaven’s sake, call me Mom. Or Michiko.”

Back in the busy centre of the park, they end up getting sweet tea from one of the food trucks. They go to sit down at a bench, when Yugi’s nose goes up in the air.

“Yakiimo! Grandpa, we have to get some! Come on!” He drags Grandpa off - not that he needs much dragging. They both love the paper-wrapped roasted sweet potatoes.

Atem helps Ms. Mutou - Michiko - set down the drinks and then sits beside her.

“So - Michiko,” he says, trying out the name, “does being _ujiko_ come with any obligations?”

“Not heavy ones. Visit sometimes, make offerings - mostly offerings of money, to help maintain the shrine.”

“What about… well, metaphysical implications?”

“Well, tradition says it means you’re welcomed by the local _kami,_ and become _ujigami,_ a family ghost, when you die. That’s just tradition, though; not many take it literally anymore.” She looks at him curiously. “What do you believe?”

Atem sips his tea and looks out at the masses of people in the park, enjoying one of the last merely-cool evenings before winter sets in. “When I was younger,” he says carefully, “I was confident I knew what was true and what was not. I’ve since had many assumptions of both kinds turned on their heads. I’m not nearly as sure of things as I used to be.”

She laughs. “That’s called adulthood! Not many ‘adults’ actually reach it, so congratulations.”

“Thanks - Mom.” He grimaces. “Is it okay if I like Michiko better?”

“It’s fine. That’s why I suggested both.” They drink in silence for a while, watching Yugi and Grandpa advance through the queue for yamiiko, until Atem speaks again.

“Today means a lot, but even when I first moved in, I was surprised by how easily you welcomed me. Grateful, but surprised.”

She shrugs. “To be honest, I asked Dad in private if there was anything I needed to worry about with you. He said no, that there was no chance of anyone from your past coming after you - right?”

“Right,” Atem confirms. _Since they’ve all been dead for 5000 years_ , he doesn’t add.

“-and that you thought Yugi hung the moon.”

“Well,” Atem says, “he’s not wrong. Still, that was all you needed to be okay with it?”

She’s silent for a while, thinking, then says, “Dad tried to stop me from being with Yugi’s father. I came close to never speaking to him again. When I ended up pregnant and alone, and had nowhere else to go, even then, if he had said one word about how he was right I think I would have left and not looked back. So I’m cautious about trying to control how my son lives his life - the big choices, anyway.” Her voice lightens as she adds, “Besides, I’ve seen how you look at Yugi.”

“How’s that?”

“The same way he looks at you. You might as well be one soul living in two bodies.”

Atem chokes and sprays tea everywhere.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _“A lamp will be lit for you in the night until the sunlight shines forth on your breast. You shall be told: "Welcome, welcome, into this your house of the living!”_ -Tomb of Paheri, tr. James Peter Allen


	8. Chapter 8

Yugi’s 100th birthday party is a hoot. Kaiba is as grimly determined to be the best at throwing parties as he is at everything else, so much so that he’s failed to notice how no one is even trying to compete with him anymore, just letting him host everything. The guests’ assembled grand- and great-grand- children, nieces and nephews and cousins thereof, godchildren, and children of unknown provenance, tear around the vintage KaibaLand like so many small, shrieking tornadoes. Yugi goes on as many rides as will take his wheelchair, plays games (many of which he designed) with young and old (even Kaiba), eats far too much cake, and generally has a blast. Atem stays glued to his side, leaning on his cane as much as his dignity will allow, watching Yugi carefully but with the same naked adoration as always.

There’s a price to pay that night, Yugi exhausted and with his blood glucose out of whack, but it was totally worth it. He says as much to Atem as he lifts Yugi's legs into bed and climbs in alongside him, slotting together like well-worn puzzle pieces.

“I know, partner,” Atem says, “and I was glad to see you so happy. I just hate to see you so tired.”

“I’d be tired no matter what, Atem. Comes with the territory.” Atem rumbles his disapproval. Yugi drifts off to the feeling of Atem stroking his hand.

He opens his eyes to a night sky brilliant with stars. He’s lying half on cool sand, and half on Atem’s lap.

With sudden, stunning strength, Atem pulls Yugi completely into his arms, crushing him to his chest. “Thank you, _thank_ you,” he sobs. “Thank you, Osiris.”

“Atem, you’re squashing me,” Yugi wheezes.

“You will permit me my squashing,” Atem says into his hair, and sniffs mightily.

“What happened? Last thing I remember was going to bed after the party and being super tired… wait.” The bone-deep fatigue that hasn’t really left him in years, the myriad aches and pains - everything’s gone. And his voice is clear, not rasping at all. He lifts a hand and looks at it: smooth skin, no wrinkles or liver spots, knuckles not swollen. “I’m dead, aren’t I.”

He feels Atem nod. “I woke to your breathing turning strange, and then s-stopping.”

“Wow. Okay, hug me all you want.” Atem does, with so much force his arms shake and Yugi’s bones creak. Very gradually, his hold eases and his breathing becomes steadier.

When Atem seems to have stepped away from the verge of a panic attack, Yugi thinks of something. “Wait a minute. _You_ were fine last night, so why are you here?”

Atem is suspiciously silent.

“Atem. Atem, what the hell did you _do?”_

Atem says, hopefully, “I… drove a very clever bargain?”

Yugi pulls free and turns to face his husband, arms crossed. “Explain. Now.”

Sheepishly, Atem scrubs the back of his neck with his hand. Yugi refuses to be distracted (yet) by the fact that Atem also looks like a young man again, an interesting combination with the cozy old-man pajamas he died (!!!) in.

“Do you remember the day I came back?”

Yugi softens incrementally. “Hard to forget.”

“I said I made a request, and mentioned that there were some conditions to my return.”

“I never did dig more details than that out of you.”

“I thought you might find them upsetting.”

“Consider me upset. Now out with it!”

Atem spreads his hands diplomatically. “In brief, I summoned Osiris-”

“Osiris the _god?_ God of death Osiris?”

“He’s also the god of pharaohs, and I was a pharaoh at that point. I had the right. Anyway, I told Him how great you were, and in exchange for my abdication, He agreed to send me back so I could treat you right…” he hesitates, visibly braces himself, then says in a rush, “including dying at the same time as you so your spirit wouldn’t get lost.”

_“Atem!”_

“I think He wants to meet you! Who wouldn’t?”

“ _Dying_ at the same _time_ as me?” Yugi knows he’s screeching; he just doesn’t care.

“What’s clever about it,” Atem says hastily, “is I let Him think it was an additional part of the price, but actually it was part of the prize.”

Yugi clenches his fists in his hair. “How is that better? Atem, what if I had been hit by a bus the next day?”

Atem flings out his arms and shouts, “Then I would have thanked Osiris for giving me that one day with you! And I would have meant it!” He drops his voice, and lays a hand on Yugi’s shoulder. “I would have meant it then, and I mean it now. I regret nothing.”  

Yugi sniffs, and lets himself be drawn into another hug. “You were bargaining at a disadvantage, you big sap,” he says wetly.

“And with shameful tunnel vision,” says a dry voice off to the side, startling both of them.

Yugi’s jaw drops. “Dark Magician!”

The monster inclines his head briefly to Yugi and continues, “I would have guided him if you had but asked, my pharaoh.”

“Mahaad,” Atem groans, “you can’t _call_ me that anymore. I abdicated three times!”

“I have been subject to no human authority for five thousand years, much less the human gods, and I will call you whatever I want,” the Dark Magician says loftily. He pauses for a beat, then adds, “my king,” with a tiny smirk. Atem grunts in disgust.

Yugi looks around properly for the first time, taking in the desert, and the nearby marshes before what looks like the Nile River - not the one he saw in life, but the one from Atem’s memories. “I’m not done yelling at you about this, Atem, but where are we?”

“The Duat,” says Atem, “the underworld. We have a long journey ahead of us. But don’t worry, partner. I know the way.”

The Dark Magician does a showy little flourish and hands them two long sticks, each with a glinting bronze blade at one end. “Speaking of, here are your crocodile spears.”

Yugi boggles. “Our what?” he squeaks.

The Dark Magician - Mahaad - gives Yugi a slow blink. “Your crocodile spears,” he says patiently, “for spearing crocodiles. There are sixteen of them converging on your position as we speak.”

Atem looks at Mahaad sharply. “Eight!”

“Eight _each.”_

“Dammit.”

“Is it too late for both of us to just go be _ujigami_ at the Domino shrine instead?” Yugi asks faintly.  

Atem grins. “This is more fun.”

There’s a hissing in the distant reeds.

Atem hefts his spear. “According to what I was taught, we don’t have to kill them, just drive them back. Are you ready?”

“Wait, wait,” Yugi says desperately, “something doesn’t add up.” He turns to Mahaad. “Mahaad, did you decide to come here?”

Mahaad blinks. “No - though I could if I chose to. I thought one of you summoned me.” Yugi and Atem look at each other and shake their heads.

“Atem, don’t you have your Dark Magician card in a frame on our bedroom wall?”

“Yes…”

“I still keep my old Duel Monsters deck in my nightstand.” Slowly, Yugi reaches into the pocket of his pajamas, and pulls out his deck. “Could the cards be like - what’s the word Grandpa used, for those little servant dolls in tombs…”

 _“Ushabti,”_ say Atem and Mahaad together, Atem with glee and Mahaad with horror.

“Kisara will never let me live this down,” Mahaad mutters.

“It could be worse, Mahaad,” Atem laughs, “you could be doll-sized.”

Yugi clears his throat. “My point is, I think we can do a little better than spears.” He fans out a hand of cards. “Should I deal you in, other me?”

Atem hands their spears back to Mahaad. “Just in case.” He turns to Yugi. “Are we really going to do this?”

Yugi gives him a Look, and is pleased to notice he has kept the inch of height he finally gained over Atem in their twenties. “You had a _secret life-ending deal with a god._ We’re going to be doing things my way for a _while,_ mister.” Atem has the decency to look suitably chagrined.

Yugi shuffles, cuts the deck in half, and hands half to Atem. This game was there at the beginning of their life together. He’s glad it gets to be part of the beginning of their afterlife.

He remembers that they’re about to go fight _sixteen crocodiles,_ and pulls Atem into a thorough kiss that leaves Atem flushed and starry-eyed. “Now, you are _not allowed_ to get hurt out there, do you understand? That would interfere with the consequences I’m planning for you.”

“As you wish,” Atem breathes, “and likewise,” then ruins the moment by spluttering, “about - not getting hurt, I mean, not-”

Mahaad sighs delicately. “This is going to be a very long walk to Aaru. If you two don’t get started soon I shall simply blast the beasts myself.”

Yugi smiles at Atem, the thrill of a new adventure starting to sing in his blood. “Race you.” He takes off across the sand. Atem whoops and follows.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ANOTHER piece of fanart by Celepom! [See it here!](http://celepom.tumblr.com/post/175691087182/more-of-toffeecapes-puzzleshipping-fanfics-this) The old man pajamas! The wedding rings I barely implied! Atem wearing Yugi's collar and Téa's cartouche! THE UGLY CRYING! I'm dead. I'm as dead as the boys. This art is my cause of death.


End file.
